


Make Me to Rest

by stitchcasual



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Chantry Issues, M/M, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, repressed Cullen, the Chant of Light as foreplay (kind of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26208358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/pseuds/stitchcasual
Summary: “O Maker, hear my cry:Guide me through the blackest nights.Steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked.Make me to rest in the warmest places."Or, the one in which Cullen wrestles with his faith and his desires and also Bull is there
Relationships: The Iron Bull/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 20
Kudos: 33
Collections: Black Emporium 2020





	Make Me to Rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Haluwasa2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haluwasa2/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy! I saw the request for a Cullen who's repressed in terms of desire/sexuality and before I knew it, I'd picked it up and run with it and, well, here we are

“We don’t have to do anything, you know.”

Cullen shifts where he stands, his hands clasped in front of him, his shoulders straight despite how very much he wants to hunch them around his head and hide. His feet stay firmly rooted to the floorboards even while his mind conjures images of him turning smartly on his heel and marching away or turning and stumbling and picking himself up to sprint for safety. Something keeps him here, inside this room that he locked with his own two hands.

The Iron Bull gazes at Cullen from where he sits on the bed in the middle of the room, one foot flat on the ground, the other on the bedspread. He sprawls against the headboard, hands behind his head, projecting an aura of utter relaxation that Cullen can feel buffeting against the rigid lines he’s drawn for himself. Bull’s eye pierces right through him, filleting Cullen’s hard-fought composure and laying it open to see the dark knot of apprehension in the center of his chest. Cullen glares back at Bull as though he could deflect Bull’s casual scrutiny with a shield of anger. Bull sidesteps Cullen’s defenses neatly, raising one unbothered eyebrow in response to the look that would have sent any other Inquisition soldier scurrying to find something, anything else to do.

“That defeats the purpose of this exercise.”

Bull’s second eyebrow joins the first. Cullen breathes in deep and stands his ground.

“What is it you think you’re training for, Commander?”

Cullen looks away first. “I asked you not to call me that here.”

“Right, right,” Bull agrees easily, like he didn’t just do that on purpose to test Cullen’s resolve. “So, Cullen, what can I do for you?”

Cullen grits his teeth and clenches his hands tight around each other. He keeps his eyes away from Bull’s, contemplates the wood grain of the door and the tarnished brass of the handle instead. He can’t remember why he’d ever thought that asking Bull was a good idea. The only positive to this situation that he can see now is that Bull isn’t the kind to go spreading rumors around the tavern about the Commander of the Inquisition’s forces requesting his…services, and then backing out before anything truly happens. Bull will, however, tell his Ben Hassrath counterparts, and Cullen can’t begin to calculate the damage that could do to the Inquisitor and what she’s building.

“Andraste preserve me,” he mutters. 

Cullen freezes, his conscious mind catching up with his errant words. Shame courses thick down his throat. His own presumption galls him: evoking the name of the Maker’s Bride is not to be done lightly, and to think he would call her attention here, to this room and what he meant to do when he first closed the door…

He drops his eyes to the floor, the cold pressure of heavenly regard sweeping from the crown of his head to the base of his neck. He shivers under it, barely manages to keep his feet rather than sink to his knees and beg forgiveness for even considering such base acts with Bull rather than a night of reflection in Skyhold’s tiny Chantry. Uncertainty floods into him and he trembles. He cannot make this decision.

“Cullen.”

The sound of his name snaps his attention back to the Iron Bull, who has dropped both feet to the ground and is leaning forward, forearms on thighs, watching him. Cullen flushes and shifts his weight, moving his hands to clasp them behind his back.

“Perhaps this—”

“Come sit by me.”

The soldier in Cullen responds to the note of command in Bull’s voice (and that’s all that responds, he tells himself), and he seats himself on the bed a foot and a half away from Bull. There’s a weight to the look Bull gives him, and it both settles and unnerves Cullen in ways he can’t pinpoint, especially not while he’s undergoing what feels like a slow, deliberate dissection. 

“Do you want me to touch you?”

Cullen swallows. Bull’s question is so vague as to be unanswerable. Yes, Cullen desperately wants to be touched: he’d nearly cried afterward the last time the Inquisitor clapped him on the shoulder and left her hand there for a few moments while she talked to him. Long years of strangling his desires and keeping himself tightly bound were the only thing that prevented him from doing so. But is Bull asking him if he needs a companionable touch or a sexual one? Fire burns in his gut as he imagines lying on the bed as Bull’s fingers dance along every piece of skin he exposes; yet warmth blooms on his face as he pictures Bull simply leaning over and hugging him here on the bed as they are. How would he express any of this aloud; would it even make sense to Bull?

“Cullen, I need an answer.”

The Iron Bull doesn’t move, but Cullen still feels his presence invading his space, can feel the force behind the way Bull looks at him. Cullen wants to shake his head and end this farce before he can make an even bigger fool of himself than he already has, but some other piece of him rebels and attempts to make him nod. He ends up swinging his head in circles. 

Bull laughs. It’s not an unkind sound, but Cullen flushes again and turns his head anyway. Every scenario he’s imagined like this, where he tries to elaborate to someone how he feels, what he wants, ends with his nonexistent partner laughing him out of the daydream.

“It’s okay to not know, Cullen. I can work with that.”

Cullen stares at the floorboards just beyond the toes of his boots, refusing to believe what he’s hearing.

“If you’re not sure about something, just say so. Now, I can see you thinking from here. You’re thinking that not knowing what you want is the wrong answer, yeah?”

Cullen keeps his mouth shut, which is apparently enough confirmation for Bull to proceed, even if Bull hasn’t got it quite right and Cullen can’t explain the nuance between what’s circling in his mind and what Bull said.

“There’s only one wrong answer when you’re with me,” Bull says. “The only wrong answer is if you lie to me.”

A tiny huff of air escapes Cullen, and Bull laughs again. 

“Yeah, I know, right? Pretty funny coming from me. But I mean it, Cullen: you can say anything to me here, as long as it isn’t a lie.”

“If I don’t know what the truth is, how do I keep from lying to you?” Cullen’s hands twist between his legs; Bull’s hands, positioned in a mirror of Cullen’s own, hold perfectly still.

“That’s easy,” Bull says. “Uncertainty isn’t falsehood. And certainty isn’t always truth. It takes a great deal of strength to admit to uncertainty when you’re expected to have things under control all the time.”

It strikes Cullen more as a weakness than a strength to be unsure, a vulnerability that can be exploited, a flaw in his faith, but he didn’t come here to argue with Bull.

“So, as long as I’m not deliberately deceiving you…”

“Then you’ve done everything I’ve asked of you.”

Cullen breathes out.

“And what about you? I mean, will you do the same?” It’s not even a fully formed thought, not a complete question, but he can still see Bull nodding in his peripheral vision.

“I won’t lie to you here either. Provided you don’t ask me for any Qunari intel I didn’t already give to Red.”

Cullen can hear the grin in Bull’s voice and can feel his own lips twitching in response. “Ah, well, there goes my plan,” he says, confused by the twisting sensation in the pit of his stomach as Bull’s booming laughter shakes the timbers above their heads. 

Bull rearranges himself on the bed, scooting away from Cullen and up to the head of the bed where he reclines against the headboard and several pillows. He’s still angled toward where Cullen sits near the foot of the bed, a polite gesture of space that Cullen appreciates and resents. Cullen does not turn to face him, but that doesn’t seem to bother Bull. Precious little, in fact, seems to faze the Qunari, and Cullen wonders how much of that is genuine and how much is a carefully cultivated facade. On the inside, is the Iron Bull in as much turmoil as Cullen? Or, at least, apprehensive at all?

“All right, how about we make this fun,” Bull says. “Let me take a guess at what it is you want, and you can tell me whether or not I’ve got it right.”

“How are either of us going to know that?”

Bull laughs again, that not unkind laugh of his that leaves Cullen feeling embarrassed and transparent. Bull points to his eyepatch and says, “Spy, remember? I can tell a lot just by looking at someone. Comes with the territory. As for you, well, sometimes it’s easier to see things in ourselves when someone else points them out. We can recognize ourselves in a mirror, but we can’t always describe ourselves accurately without it.

“So, do you want to play my little guessing game?”

“Do I have a choice?” Cullen asks. He intends the question as a joke, at least that’s what he tells himself, but he doesn’t get the inflection right. Anywhere else, anyone else would give him a pass on that. Anyone else would accept the polite fiction the Commander was tired, whether or not he truly was, and ignore or disregard any tonal inconsistencies to his words. The Iron Bull, on the other hand, stares at him until Cullen caves and looks over.

“You always have a choice,” Bull says.

“And if I choose to leave?”

Bull gestures toward the door with one arm. “Then you’re free to leave.” He narrows his eye conspiratorially. “But I’m going to guess that you want to stay more than you want to go.”

Maker damn him. Maker damn them both, at the end of it.

Sometimes Cullen isn’t sure if he’s still following the Maker’s will, and he imagines the divine judgment to come once he passes from this world. There were years of his life, a broad swath of time where he doubted nothing, wholly trusting in the Templars’ mandate to protect Thedas from the mages and the mages from themselves. He’d felt the Maker’s presence, known His holy face was turned toward Cullen’s deeds with pride and love.

And then he faltered at Kinloch, unsure what he had done to deserve the punishment meted to him at the hands of those demons, only sure that he must have deserved it. Meredith had called it a cleansing fire and welcomed him in Kirkwall. So he served again, stood before the corrupt and the wicked, and he’s still uncertain if it counts as faltering to have turned his blade on his commander.

His time with the Inquisition has been…important, and he believes in the Inquisitor, in what she’s doing and who she is. Is it sacrilegious to trust so much in a human woman, Herald though she may be? 

“O Maker, hear my cry,” Cullen mumbles, his head drooping down so his chin nearly meets his chest. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s praying for or why; perhaps he’s simply repeating verses so he has something to say. Neither option speaks highly of him.

“How’s the rest of that one go?”

Cullen startles, and his head jerks back up. Bull smiles encouragingly. Cullen wets his lips and stares past Bull to a notch carved in the headboard behind him.

“Guide me through the blackest nights.”   
  
Bull nods.

“Steel my heart against the…temptations of the wicked.”

Bull wiggles his eyebrows at Cullen for a moment before smoothing his expression back into polite interest.

“Make me to rest in the warmest places.”

“Good,” Bull says. 

With that word, Cullen breathes out some of the tension he’s been holding, and his shoulders drop forward, released from their rigid posture. Beside him, Bull hums and knocks the side of his fist against Cullen’s bicep.

“Why don’t you take that off?” Bull’s fingers uncurl and pick into the fur that covers the neck and shoulders of Cullen’s armor.

Just like that, Cullen’s shoulders are back to where they were. His stomach roils, reacting to the shock of nerves that accompanied Bull’s question.

“Just the plate and the fuzz,” Bull says. “That’ll be enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“I’m going to guess,” Bull says, in a tone of voice that Cullen is certain can be qualified as  _ smug, _ “that it’s been a while since anyone has helped you out with that stress you’re carrying up here. So once you’ve racked your armor, come sit here and let me work at it.”

Bull sits up straight, pats the bed right in front of him, and smiles. How he can manage to look so innocent, Cullen doesn't know. But Bull’s words sound innocent enough and he hasn’t asked Cullen to undress past his comfort level, so Cullen stands and crosses the room to the armor rack Bull indicated. He detaches the fur ruff and takes his time with the rest of the buckles that secure his chestpiece, using the manufactured space to think through what’s happening and try to attempt to detangle for himself the complicated knot of what he wants before Bull guesses it out of him.

He could still leave: the door is just to the right of where Cullen stands now. It would be a simple matter to undo the lock on the latch and walk through rather than submit to Bull’s…demand? request? But he does want it, this touch that Bull has offered him, however uncertain he may feel about anything else. They’ve spoken about what Cullen wants, this entire evening has, in fact, focused solely on him, but nowhere in there have Bull’s wants been expressed. It can’t be enough for Bull to devote his evening to Cullen’s needs without getting something in return. 

If he stays, does he do so because he truly wants to or because he would feel guilty for having wasted Bull’s time were he to abruptly exit? If he reciprocates Bull’s attentions, is he only doing so out of a sense of obligation, because it would be expected of him, or is it also something he wants? Cullen can’t decide which it is. There’s a bit of each tied up in the others to the point where they feel like inseparable motivations. Is it enough to stay when desire isn’t the only thing propelling him? 

His fumbling fingers find the last clasp and struggle through the release. It takes him a few tries, and his face is flushed with embarrassment at the thought of Bull witnessing Cullen wrestle with his own armor like this. But when he turns around after slipping the chestpiece off and settling it on the rack, Bull isn’t even looking at him. He’s occupied with pulling things from the chest at the foot of the bed, humming some tune under his breath that Cullen doesn’t recognize. 

Cullen breathes in deep, clenching his fists to quell their shaking. He releases his hands with his breath, a deliberate unfolding of fingers. He would prefer if Bull assumed his nerves were getting to him rather than guessing the truth of his tremors. At least the former, when relayed to the Ben Hassrath, wouldn’t put the Inquisition at as great a risk as the latter. Thankfully Bull only closes the lid to the chest and looks up when Cullen has himself under control after another few rounds of breathing. 

Bull straightens, his arms full of…blankets? maybe, and nods approvingly at Cullen’s more casual state of dress.

“My guess is you’d prefer to not be facedown for this.”

Cullen nods without thinking before he asks, “For what?”

“I’m going to give you a massage, and we’re going to talk.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Bull sits down in the middle of the bed and scoots back until he’s pressed against the headboard again. He piles the blankets next to him and pats the bed between his spread legs. Cullen prays to the Maker for strength. Bull props his arms up on his knees and dissects him again, his head tilted to one side.

“Until and unless you can tell me exactly what you want, Cullen, we’re sticking with this. I’d  _ like _ to tie you up in pretty poses and torture you until you beg for mercy—”

Cullen’s face burns and he turns away.

“—but only if you can tell me you want that too. I  _ want _ to make you feel good, and however that looks is fine by me.” 

With one hand, Bull gestures again at the space he’s left for Cullen on the bed. It’s a nice gesture, a friendly motion, one that doesn’t place any requirements on Cullen but gives him the option. This would almost be easier if Bull would just tell him what to do. Cullen understands orders, craves hierarchy. He knows his place in a structured system: The Inquisitor, her advisors (including himself), the Inquisition soldiers, the citizens of Thedas. The Maker, his Bride, the Divine, her anointed acolytes, other Chantry officials, and, at the bottom of that particular list, himself. Bull, then himself. It would be so simple. 

Or, rather, it would be simple if he could figure out how to get himself to surrender to that particular structure. He’d had years of training as a Templar to adapt to the rules and regulations and his place among them. He’d had some months with the Inquisition, even before the Conclave, to internalize the command structure of their organization. But learning his place with Bull, should he even truly desire such a thing, is a prospect shrouded in mystery. Personal systems have always been more confusing to Cullen than professional systems, and it’s one of the reasons he’s avoided fraternizing with the people under his command as well as most of his peers for as long as he has.

In a professional setting, Cullen indisputably has authority over Bull and his Chargers and what they should and shouldn’t do. The Inquisitor has given Cullen explicit jurisdiction over military matters, which includes overseeing Bull’s mercenaries as well as any other drafted militia. In a personal setting, Cullen knows that the Iron Bull takes charge of his partners. He knows this, but he doesn’t know how to allow that to happen.

He does what Bull asked of him, sitting down on the bed between Bull’s legs with his back to the Qunari. Maybe that’s the first step. He crosses his legs and tries to release the tension he can feel creeping up his spine and along his shoulder blades. The weight of one of Bull’s hands settling in the junction of Cullen’s neck and shoulder doesn’t help, and the push of Bull’s thumb into the meat of his back sets off a cascading series of pinpricks that radiate from his shoulder down to the opposite hip. Cullen drops his shoulder to get it away from Bull’s hand, tilting his entire body to seek relief from the discomfort. The pressure disappears as Bull lifts his hand from Cullen’s back.

“I know,” Bull says, his voice soft and…regretful? “Sorry. Would you like me to try again?”

Once the pain in Cullen’s back subsides, he exhales and then nods.

As if in answer, Bull presses the flat of both his hands against the sides and back of Cullen’s neck, the heels of his hands resting on either side of Cullen’s spine, and leaves them there. By slow degrees, Cullen relaxes into the warmth he leeches from these hands, his eyes closing and back bending, just slightly. Bull makes a pleased sound, and one of his hands begins pushing at Cullen’s shoulder again, lighter this time but firm enough that Cullen still groans. Bull just chuckles and keeps going.

He doesn’t speak for a few minutes, not that Cullen’s counting the minutes because every time he tries to keep track of how long it’s been, Bull’s fingers find a knot in his back and disrupt Cullen’s count.

Finally Bull says, “Time for my next guess.”

Cullen grunts, both at the sensitive spot Bull’s chosen to rub on his back and to show that he’s paying attention to what Bull’s saying.

“I’m guessing you came to me because you want to relax, to forget about all the bullshit you have to deal with every day.”

“It’s not bullshit,” Cullen mutters defensively, but he doesn’t otherwise protest.

“Very important bullshit,” Bull says, and Cullen grumbles under his breath as Bull laughs. 

Bull taps the side of Cullen’s neck with one finger like he’s thinking about something, while the rest of his hands keep up their work, lulling Cullen back down to the peace Bull is rubbing into his back.

“Tell me, Cullen, do you jack off?”

The way Bull asks the question makes it sound like an order, and Cullen desperately wants to obey but he can’t speak past the startled heat suffusing his head and neck. Bull hasn’t let up on the massage, though his hands are moving slower now, pushing with less intensity, not interrupting Cullen’s thoughts.

Cullen shakes his head. He can’t muster anything approaching a verbal response.

“Hmm. I’m going to guess you have before though.”

Cullen wants to answer Bull’s questions, to do what is asked of him, almost as much as he wishes he could shrink and disappear. He nods his head. The way Bull rubs his thumb across the back of Cullen’s neck feels like a reward he doesn’t deserve. 

“Is it the lyrium or the Chantry?”

If Bull could stop asking unanswerable questions, Cullen would be eternally grateful. Those two things, for Cullen at least, are inextricably tied together. His devotion to one led to his dependence on the other, and the cycle spiraled from there, both sides feeding into each other. He doubts his decision to give up lyrium sometimes: a small but persuasive voice lives in his head, whispering to him that to turn his back on one is to turn his back on the other as well.

“It’s…not the lyrium,” he says, and that stings like a betrayal even though it’s the truth. 

The movement of Bull’s hands doesn’t stop, doesn’t stutter, and Cullen might just hate that. But not enough to leave.

“I can work with that,” Bull says.

He leaves one hand on Cullen’s shoulder as he leans over. Cullen can only tell Bull moves by the shifting of the bed behind him: his focus is otherwise fixated on the hand still touching him and the weight and warmth of it. Bull grips one of the blankets he’d piled on the bed next to them and drags it across their legs and Cullen’s lap. It feels heavier than any of the blankets Cullen’s ever possessed, feels like it’s pressing him down into the bed, cocooning the lower half of him in comfort. He closes his eyes and allows himself to sink into that feeling.

“Thought you might like that,” Bull says, his lips right next to Cullen’s ear. The arm he’d used to move the blanket hasn’t retreated to its original position, is still draped across Cullen, a bar against his chest.

Bull leans forward, his broad chest making contact with every spare inch of Cullen’s back. He digs with his thumb a few more times into Cullen’s shoulder before wrapping that arm around Cullen too, layering his arms to cover as much of Cullen as possible.

Cullen sags into Bull’s embrace, the sensation of being safe so overwhelming that he can hardly do anything else. He hadn’t known how to ask for this, wasn’t sure it was anything he  _ could _ request, and yet here they are. He floats for a few minutes, lost in how it feels to be held by another person, before his thoughts crash back in. If he were truly walking the Maker’s path, he shouldn’t need contact like he does: the Maker would not give him more than he could handle, therefore seeking out something like this only proves his weakness, his inability to follow the path laid out for him.

He stiffens and tries to pull away, but Bull will not release him. He grinds his teeth, unable still to ask for what he wants.

“Take from me a life of sorrow,” Bull says, and Cullen startles at the familiar line being spoken into his ear. “Lift me from a world of pain.”

Bull’s thumb rubs at the valley beneath Cullen’s collarbone. “Now, I’m no expert on the Chant, but I doubt the Maker means for any of His children to go through life alone. I figure there has to be a reason you meet who you do, and it’s so they can help you on your way as you help them. Or, at least, that’s what I took from Red last time we talked.”

“You…talk with Leliana about the Chant?” Cullen’s disbelief finds his voice.

“The Qun, too. It’s nice to talk about something other than work sometimes.” 

Cullen absorbs this, as he absorbs the weight of the blanket and the warmth of Bull’s arms and the comfort that comes from being held, and he thinks that maybe, at least for tonight, he can believe that this is something the Maker would want for him.


End file.
